Make it happen Part I

Chasing dreams..

Feeling I needed to catch a river monster of 50lb plus properly wouldn’t come off my local river the mighty Trent, “possible” who knows whats in there, stories say very few catfish prowl in parts but I needed to travel further afield, so talking to good sources in the tackle trade I was told to fish the river Ebro Spain.

The company I used was lake-escapes which was no let down! Arriving on a very sticky September Sunday evening, time for a quick beer then straight to bed. Wake up call at 4:00am, loaded boat and beer of course (after all it was a holiday!) The bait was being delivered to the bank! When the word delivered is used you think big! And yes it was! 250kilos of 20m pellets and that was for a day! S##t this could be expensive! But I was told the more bait the bigger the fish, so baits boated out and time for a beer! After literally five minutes a delkim roars off! Wow what a fight, felt nothing like it before, the pain! Had to be a catfish, a helping hand grabbed the leader and told me that it was a bigun! And that it was. 152lb my word, first fish of day! Stunned I had to sit down!

One very lucky bleeder.

Still stunned I managed to get a crafty “well deserved” beer! Overwhelmed with anticipation wondering what was to come to the bank next.

Three hours later and a little half cut “yes” the crafty old sod did it again! Man this catfishing was good fun! Just a scrape over 145lbs!

Unbelievable !!

The catfish gods were looking down at me that day. Or mr grothier had been doing his home work. What a place this was, the scenery, the atmosphere, the monsters of the deep. The heat. And this was just in the first day! Slept well that night well until 4:00am.

Day 2 “living the dream”

Back on the boat. Back on the bank. You should of seen the smile on my face! Baits placed out and half a sack of pellets over each bait, it wasn’t a cheap sport by all means but a fish of life time is priceless.

I decided to leave the cat rods as things were slow that morning so I got the carp rods set up, By 13:00am I had a flurry of carp on my pineapple popups up to 34lbs!

“Result”

Day 3 “Decision time”

Do I carry on catfishing or let the lads take my place on the rods, so that they had more chance of catching? We went as a team so you should fish as a team. Remember if you all chip in for bait it’s a team event, so I did my bit by baiting swims with the boat, very enjoyable too just sitting back and watching others catching.

“The scenery was incredible”.

You had to pull off the river by 10:00pm but to be quite honest we were ready for it. It’s a long day when the temperature is about 40° in the shade, I always managed to get one in before packing away. Not big by the Ebros standards but great fun on light tackle.

Day 4 “Needed more bait”.

The bait was rapidly running out so we all had to dig deep. With boat fully loaded more bait was being delivered to a new location, we just needed to hit this one right. So everyone got a good chance of these big cats, with time against us, we needed the fish gods to be back with us once again.

They certainly didn’t shine through that day, oh well you can’t get in right every time.